Contributing Artists

Quiana Carter, Frank Vicent Mitchell, Lisa Moran, Gerald Posley, Damon Reed, Frank Robinson, Maya Simmons, Benjamin Blaise Williams, Karen Williams

Exhibition Statement as Preserved in the SUGS/SITE Archives:

A journey onto the mind of the African Diaspora; What is “Black Aesthetic?” That is a question that scholars such as Allain Locke of the 1930’s and Allison Gayle of the 1960’s have posed to the artistic community. The question has been asked since the Harlem Renaissance of the twenties and thirties. It was asked even before free blacks put hands to paint or clay in the United States. African American artists have rallied to respond to this scholarly inquiry through history. However, it is a question that has yet to be answered, because the parameters in which is asked have always been too narrow. We have discovered that there is a paradox in responding to the question of what is African American art, because there are almost as many cultures in the Afro-American society as there are in Africa. Our experiences differ from where we originate in the African Diaspora. A person from the South is different from someone from the North, who is also different from a person in the East or West. Therefore, our individual experiences are more complex, richer and more diverse than any miopic, monolithic notion. Our definition of the Black Aesthetic is based on what cultural region we are from, as wel as our socio-economic status, sexual orientation and gender. We feel that Black Art is an organic, changing idea, that is not limited by the color of the artist. Its vision is as diverse as the workd of Henry O. Tanner, Aaron Douglas, and Jean-Michel Basquiat. Its voices are as varied as Langston Hughes, Lorraine Hansberry and Terry McMillian. Its rhythm is as different as John Coltraine, Jimi Hendrix and a Tribe Called Quest. Yet, there is still something that links these visions together. It is an institution, a communal language or vernacular that is evident in our performance in visual musical and literary expression. NIA, the School of the Art Institute’s Black Student Untion created this exhibition to celebrate this diversity and unity. We come from many different regions, are invovled in different disciplines and have various visions of expression that have sprung from a common root. We present this communal diversity through our art work in hopes that it will foster greater awareness and understanding the diveristy of Black Aesthetic within Chicago and beyond.